Technology Lead
Hotels.com (Expedia Group)
💼 Full-time • March 2017 → August 2020
🏢 Hotels.com (Expedia Group)
🔗 Expedia Group
📍 Rome Area, Italy •
Global worker for Hotels.com, an Expedia Group company based in London. Team leader of an 8-person team in Rome. In this role, I gained experience in people management, conducting job interviews, and developing talent.
- Spearheaded the adoption of GraphQL, implementing the first hotels.com GraphQL microservice and elevating technical visibility through blog posts and meetups.
- Led the evolution of the HREST Kernel framework, accelerating web app development and reducing technical debt across teams.
- Successfully managed AWS migration for critical services, consistently meeting deadlines and ensuring operational stability.
- Drove the decommissioning of legacy mobile APIs through cross-team collaboration, completing the project ahead of schedule.
- Cultivated a fast-learning team culture by organizing Code Academy sessions and mentoring through internal training programs.
Skills
- GraphQL & API Design
- Cloud Infrastructure (AWS)
- Framework Development (HREST Kernel)
- Open Source Contribution
- Team Leadership
- Stakeholder Communication
-
Mentorship & Talent Development
- Architectural leadership and technology innovation (HREST Kernel, GraphQL)
- Leading cloud migration and infrastructure projects
- Contributing to technical strategy and roadmap execution
- System maintenance and technical debt reduction
- Team leadership and empowerment (Epic Leaders, ramp-up support)
- Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management
- Proactive problem solving and initiative
- Mentorship and knowledge sharing (Code Academy)
- Adaptability and advocating for technical change
Projects
Performance Review
Summary: Drove significant technical innovations, including GraphQL adoption and core framework development, while fostering a strong team culture, mentorship, and cross-organizational collaboration. Demonstrated strong decision-making and problem-solving abilities in evolving technical landscapes.
Key Skills:
- Technical Leadership: Driving innovation, architectural solutions, technical decision-making, backlog definition, epic breakdown, managing roadmap initiatives.
- New Technology Adoption: First GraphQL API implementation for hotels.com, HREST Kernel development, identifying and promoting new tools.
- Team Development & Culture: Fostering fast learning environments, Code Academy facilitation, organizing training sessions, promoting self-organization, enhancing team trust and delegation through “Epic Leaders” and “Guard” roles.
- Project Management: Leading complex projects (3PI/MS, SAi decommissioning), managing roadmap initiatives, ensuring timely delivery, mitigating project roadblocks, AWS migration.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Effective communication and collaboration with various Teams, TPMs, and Architects, collecting requirements, building consensus.
- Open Source Contribution: Organizing efforts for open-sourcing internal frameworks.
- Mentorship: Coaching, providing meaningful feedback.
Achieved Results:
- Successfully led the evolution of HREST Kernel, a core framework, speeding up the startup of new web applications for the team and other pods, and enabled SRLE migration to this framework, significantly reducing technical debt.
- Pioneered GraphQL adoption within the organization, implementing the first GraphQL micro-service, contributing to the tech blog, and hosting meetups to share knowledge and elevate the company’s technical profile.
- Managed the successful migration to AWS for critical services, consistently meeting project deadlines.
- Provided high added value to PCE adoption from front-end teams, migrating critical logic (Currencies, Point of Sales) and assisting in production issue debug and investigations (e.g., Akamai issue).
- Spearheaded the decommissioning of SAi, collaborating effectively with other teams to plan and execute the activity, resulting in early 2020 completion.
- Actively contributed to building a fast learning environment in Rome by serving as a Teacher Assistant for data science and Kotlin courses, sharing Machine Learning knowledge, and organizing Code Academy sessions.
- Improved team independence and self-organization through the introduction of the “Epic Leader” strategy and a rigorous definition of “Guard” roles, delegating responsibilities for specific topics and application monitoring.
- Contributed to a 5-star team culture by facilitating Code Academy courses and actively promoting team contributions during company-wide tech events.
- Successfully led the 3PI/MS project with efficiency and a goal-oriented mindset.
- Authored and shared “My eight rules to effectively work in a global team” on the company tech blog, contributing to a culture of best practices and collaboration.
- Contributed to the ramp-up of new team members, providing practical and technical support.
- Organized and scheduled efforts to release the HEAT framework to the open-source community, minimizing impact on business activities.
Job Description
Role Summary: People leader providing direction to a small team, delivering on multiple projects, and ensuring team growth and performance.
Role Expectations:
- Guide and mentor team members, fostering growth and collaboration
- Plan and optimize resources for team goals
- Lead process improvement and product development lifecycle
- Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Advocate for operational excellence and technical best practices
Skills:
- Technical acumen across multiple technologies
- Team enablement and mentorship
- Resource planning and optimization
- Business acumen and product delivery
- Technical communication and consulting